The Industrial Revolution and its Impact on Family Life and Women
World Civilization II

Edmund Burke once said," Make revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions." This comical yet straightforward quote can be related to a time in history called the Industrial Revolution. Throughout history there has been a political, economical, social and cultural revolution. These revolutions has had complex and long lasting impacts on people’s lives, one revolution that has forever changed history is the Industrial Revolution. The term revolution is defined as a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving. The Industrial revolution was a cultural revolution that impacted people’s lives forever.
They were the child-bearers taking care of and raising their children while providing and producing goods for the family, and engaging in simple domestic activities such as farming, trade, craftwork, handling of money, saving and investment or even working alongside their husbands in all the household chores.
One of the most common domestic activities carried out by women was weaving. Japan is a prototypical example of such a weaving society. Weaving skills were seen as a necessity for women and were considered as a social requirement in order to live. It was the decisive factor in determining the value of women whom if lacked these skills were not acknowledged as being mature. Whether a woman was proficient or inferior at weaving determined her value as a wife to the extent that if she wasn't capable of weaving then she would get divorced. Moreover, even though women weavers earned a significant amount of money, they were still not perceived as established professionals but rather as housewives. This discrediting of women in their traditional roles led inevitably to a prejudice against them and in favor of manhood. The necessity of women, both married and single, to find waged work outside the home fuelled the Industrial Revolution which gradually restructured the negative stereotypes revolving around women's traditional family and societal roles.
The Industrial revolution paved the way for women's integration